


Russet Red

by SweetScentences



Category: Gideon the Ninth - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Chapter Coda/POV Change, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Not that Harrow knows its pining, Pining, The end of chapter 20 from Harrow's perspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-13
Updated: 2019-11-13
Packaged: 2021-01-29 20:29:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21416218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SweetScentences/pseuds/SweetScentences
Summary: Gideon’s hood was down, her hair brushing Harrowhark’s cheek in an entirely offensive way as Harrow dragged them both down the hall to their quarters. Damn Gideon Nav for being so tall. Damn Gideon Nav for being built like a fuckingbrick.Damn Gideon Nav for putting her life in Harrowhark’s hands, all because sheasked.
Relationships: Gideon Nav/Harrowhark Nonagesimus
Comments: 35
Kudos: 429





	Russet Red

**Author's Note:**

> I just finished this book, like, two days ago and I needed to scream about it. This hasn't been beta read because I'm forcing ComparedFever to read the book and I don't want to spoil a single thing. Please feel free to let me know if there are any glaring errors. The dialogue from the end of chapter 20 is included in this, as are the notes from 21, but everything else is my writing. I hope you enjoy this self-indulgent nonsense <3

It was generally assumed that Harrowhark Nonagesimus’ favorite color was black. In fact, that same assumption was made about _ anyone _ of the Ninth House. But the dark swaths of clothing the Ninth dressed themselves in were less a matter of preference and more a matter of options. Dearburh lacked the bold, rich dyes found on other planets. Black and white were simply the easiest colors to produce. What wasn’t black or white was a shade of ivory or gray. Bone, shadow, dust, and the eternal dark of night. Just like everything else in the Ninth House. 

There was one notable exception to this. 

If Gideon Nav’s wild voice and wilder personality didn’t draw the eyes of everyone in a room, her hair would do the trick. 

When they were children, Harrow thought Gideon’s hair was the result of some strange magic. She had run her small, clumsy fingers through it just to be sure it was real. Gideon had let her- laughing the whole time, her chest puffed with pride at being the center of the Reverend Daughter’s attention. 

As if she ever wasn’t. 

The only color that came close to matching the brilliance of Gideon’s hair was freshly spilled blood. Harrowhark didn’t know which one was more familiar to her. 

It had been a shock coming to Canaan House. There were clothes and book bindings the same gilded red as Gideon’s hair, detailed so often with a gold as flawless as Gideon’s eyes. But while the books and clothing were there to be seen, to be traced with careful fingers, Gideon’s hair was obligingly hidden by her hood, and her eyes covered by the black tinted glasses she found God fucking knew where. 

Or at least, they usually were. But now Gideon’s hood was down, her hair brushing Harrowhark’s cheek in an entirely offensive way as Harrow dragged them both down the hall to their quarters. Damn Gideon Nav for being so tall. Damn Gideon Nav for being built like a fucking _ brick_. 

Harrow wheezed and stumbled, tripping over one of Gideon’s dragging feet. Gideon groaned pitifully. Harrow’s stomach rolled. She fought down the urge to vomit.

Damn Gideon Nav for putting her life in Harrowhark’s hands, all because she _ asked_. 

Harrow was filled with the brutal urge to drop Gideon, to let her crumple onto the floor. To kick her while she was down. To punish her for _ daring _ to trust Harrow. Harrow was not a creature meant to be trusted. She was a cruel amalgamation of soul-swallowing ambition and bitter disregard for the lives of anyone standing in her way. She was born from brutality and lived by brutality. Gideon Nav knew better than _ anyone _ how vicious Harrowhark Nonagesimus was. 

Who but Gideon had endured Harrow’s violence their entire life? 

Gideon made a soft sound, warm breath brushing across Harrow’s bare cheek. Part of her was glad Gideon was halfway unconscious, not processing any of the world around her. She wasn’t sure she could stand Gideon staring at her bare face. Septimus and her cavalier seeing it had been awful enough. 

If Harrow were being honest, which she rarely was, it was less the thought of Gideon seeing her without her face paint that frightened her, and more the realization that some part of her _ wanted _ it. Harrowhark wasn’t allowed to want things. Not for herself alone.

Harrow tugged at the arm slung over her shoulders and hauled Gideon further onto her, ignoring the strain and the way her legs shook. 

Summoning constructs to carry Gideon would have been easier, but Harrow didn’t think she had the energy to. She didn’t think she had the stomach to either. It felt wrong to haul Gideon around with necromancy, when necromancy had just done such a horrible violence to her. Not that Harrow’s hands were any better. 

But Harrow was the only option other than Septimus’ cavalier, who wasn’t an option _ at all_. 

Harrow’s skin crawled with the memory of the trial, prickling at the phantom touch of the field. But that was nothing, really. Nothing at all compared to the memory of Gideon screaming. Harrow had never heard a sound like that before- the shrieking wail of a person dying in agony. Because Gideon _ had _ been dying, her soul burning up in Harrow’s chest. 

Gideon Nav had been screaming as she died, and Harrowhark Nonagesimus was the thing killing her. 

No one would ever know that Harrow wept as she walked through the field. The tears were stung off her face as quickly as they fell. 

Gideon Nav was a creature of stubbornness and pride she fought tooth and bloody nail for. She never met Harrow with anything less that brutal confidence. She wasn’t supposed to be laid low by Harrow. She wasn’t supposed to be laid low by _ anything_. 

Some part of Harrow always thought Gideon Nav was unkillable. 

But Harrow could kill Gideon. She could scrape her soul out of her body in cruel strips. 

Harrow wished, childishly, that she didn’t know that. 

It was an awful thought to have rattling around in the back of her head. She distracted herself from it by carefully leaning Gideon against the wall near the door to their quarters. Gideon groaned, her head tipping against the wall, her eyes sliding shut. Her hands, limp by her sides, were shaking. Harrow bit her lip, turning her attention away from the drying blood on Gideon’s face to open the door. Then she wrapped Gideon over her again, and hauled her inside. 

Harrow briefly considered her own bed, before deciding Gideon would be more comfortable in her own strange nest of blankets. More comfortable in something Harrow hadn’t touched. 

Harrow dropped to her knees, bruisingly hard, and eased Gideon as carefully as she could onto the blankets. Gideon blinked up at her for a long, glassy-eyed moment. Then she burst into a round of bloody sneezes. Harrow’s hands twitched, and she fisted them in the borrowed fabric gathered in her lap to stop from reaching out to Gideon. She wouldn’t want to be touched by Harrow anymore than she already had. 

Gideon pulled a bundle of fabric from her pocket and wiped clumsily at her bloody nose, trying to clean it. All she succeeded in doing was smearing the blood and paint across her face in a macabre picture. 

Harrow wasn’t sure what kind of face she was making, but apparently it was one Gideon didn’t approve of. 

“Quit looking at me like that,” she rasped, still wiping at her face. “I’m alive.” 

Her voice was rough and scratchy. She had worn her throat raw screaming while Harrow killed her. 

“You nearly weren’t,” Harrow said, desperately hoping she didn’t sound as hysterical as she felt. “And you’re not even aggrieved about it.” 

It would be easier to bear if Gideon had been furious. If she had levied her familiar anger on Harrow. She _ deserved _ Gideon’s fury. She did not deserve the soft, worried expression on Gideon’s bloodied face. 

“Don’t price your life so cheaply, Griddle.” 

_ Don’t let me take it from you. _ Harrow took a grounding breath. She tried to summon all the imperiousness of the Revered Daughter, and abandon all the fear of Harrowhark. “I have absolutely no interest in you losing your sense of self-preservation.” 

Before today, Gideon Nav’s death had never been a possibility in Harrow’s mind. Now Harrow realized it had _ always _ been a possibility, and there was no one to blame for that but her. 

There was no world in which that was acceptable. It was too much to even think about. 

“What are these theorems _ for_?” Harrow snarled. She let her frustration, her fury bubble over. She barely resisted the urge to wind her fingers into her hair and _ rip _ it. “What did we gain from that? What was the point?” 

Harrow took a sharp, shuddering breath. She was the reason Gideon Nav was laying there, half dead and bloodied. Who knew what kind of damage had been done to her? To her soul?

_ Sextus knew_. 

She dug her nails into her palms so sharply they split skin. “I should have walked away, like Sextus,” she hissed, damn near frantic, fully out of control. “But I don’t have the luxury! I need to become Lyctor _ now_, before-” 

Harrow’s self control came back to her the instant she caught sight of Gideon’s wide eyes. She snapped her mouth shut, took a deep breath, and fought the urge to scream. Gideon kept looking at her, blinking slowly. Each time it took longer and longer for her eyes to open again. 

Eventually they slid shut, and Gideon’s only movement was the rise and fall of her chest. Once Harrow was sure Gideon was asleep she stood up, her knees popping painfully, and hurried to the bathroom. She barely reached the toilet in time before throwing up. 

She spent a humiliatingly long time crouched on the bathroom floor emptying the bile from her stomach, and when that was gone, dry heaving. When that finally stopped, Harrow rested her head on her shaking arms. Her breathing was hitching and horrible, but she wasn’t crying. Harrow didn’t have enough left in her to cry. All she could do was sit on the bathroom floor, shivering as the cold slunk in through Gideon’s stolen cloak. 

Her one consolation was that Gideon was too dead to the world to know how long it took Harrow to piece herself back together. She was still asleep when Harrow shuffled back to her bedside. She sat back down, briefly considering getting a cloth to clean the blood and paint off Gideon’s face. Just as she decided it wouldn’t be worth it to wake her, Gideon jerked violently. Her eyes snapped open, and she went right back to staring at Harrow in the unnerving way only she could. 

Before Gideon could say anything, Harrow rolled her shoulders back and straightened up. “Get some rest,” she told her, as strictly as she could. 

For once, Gideon was happy to listen to her. She settled into her nest of blankets and quickly fell back asleep. Harrow spent a few minutes centering herself to the rise and fall of Gideon’s chest, quietly piecing together a plan. 

She would go to Sextus first. As much as it galled her, she had no way of knowing if Gideon was alright. Harrow had no way of knowing if she had done some permanent, irreversible damage to Gideon. But Sextus and his cavalier were both well versed in medicine. Harrow could swallow her pride if Gideon’s life was on the line. 

Harrow took a careful hold of one of Gideon’s wrists, searching for her pulse. She found it easily, the strong, steady beat easing some of her worry. When Gideon had first blacked out, as Harrow broke through the field, there had been a horrifying moment where Harrow thought she was dead. It had passed quickly when Gideon came back to consciousness, but it shook Harrow to her soul. 

She didn’t know a world without Gideon Nav. 

She caught herself squeezing Gideon’s wrist too tightly, and unwound her fingers. She hauled herself to her feet, not bothering to be graceful. Gideon’s heartbeat seemed healthy, as far as Harrow could tell. That meant she had time to re-paint her face and change into her own clothing before facing Sextus. 

Gideon seeing Harrow’s bare face evoked an emotion Harrow was intent on repressing. Septimus and her cavalier seeing was an indignity only excused by the circumstance, but it still turned Harrow’s stomach. Going to Sextus barefaced, barefooted, and looking like a frantic child would be too much to bear. She had bested a challenge Sextus couldn’t. No matter how much she regretted doing it, Harrow wouldn’t undermine that achievement. It would be one blow too many. 

Harrow changed quickly, not allowing herself to linger in Gideon’s cloak. She dressed herself in layers and layers of black fabric until she stopped feeling so exposed. After that, it took nearly no time to paint her face. She had so much practice she could do it in the dark, if she wanted to. It had made painting Gideon’s face odd- the feeling of unfamiliar features under her fingertips. She shook herself out of the thought. 

Once she was dressed, she checked Gideon’s pulse once again, snagging the keyring from Gideon’s pocket before leaving. She swept down the walls of Canaan House as quickly as she could without running. She hoped Sextus was in his quarters. Harrow desperately wanted to avoid hunting him down. 

Blessedly, his door opened as soon as she finished pounding on it. Sextus’ cavalier, Camilla, stood in the doorway, blinking down at Harrow. 

“I must speak with Sextus.” She stared Camilla down, refusing to even blink before she agreed. Camilla tilted her head, and opened the door enough to let Harrow inside. 

Sextus was hunched over his desk, skimming through piles and piles of flimsy. He looked up when the door shut, pushing his glasses up his nose. He blinked at Harrow, his face carefully blank. 

“Reverend Daughter,” he greeted, perfectly polite. “What brings you here?” 

“We completed the field trial. In laboratory eight,” Harrow said, cutting straight to the point. 

Sextus paled, rising from his chair so quickly it was a miracle he didn’t trip. “Your cavalier, is she-?”

“She’s sleeping now,” Harrow told him, winding her hands together in front of her to still their twitching. “You have experience with medicine. I would ask you to look her over, if you would be willing.” 

Sextus blinked at her, poleaxed, for some inexplicable reason. 

“She’s asleep?” Camilla asked, on behalf of her silent necromancer. “Not dead?” 

Harrow’s blood ran cold. She bared her teeth in a sneer. “Would I be here if she were dead?” 

Sextus cleared his throat. “Are you certain she’s asleep, or has she fallen into a coma?” 

“How does one tell the difference?” Harrow asked, bile climbing back up throat. 

There was an impressive furrow in Sextus’ brow. He tugged his glasses off his face to clean them. “Has she been conscious at all since the trial?” he asked. 

Harrow took a shaking breath. “She has.” 

“That’s… good,” Sextus said. He slid his glasses into place and settled back into his chair, pulling out a notebook. “Impossible, but good. In the time that she’s been awake, has she been responsive? Coherent?” 

“She has held conversation, to an extent,” Harrow said, trying desperately to hide some of the fear in her voice. “What do you mean _ impossible_?”

Sextus nodded and jotted down quick notes as she spoke. “You have a terrifyingly resilient cavalier, Reverend Daughter,” he said. He looked back up to meet Harrow’s eyes. “It doesn’t sound like she’s fallen into a coma, which should be impossible because that trial was as likely to permanently mangle a cavalier’s brain as it was to kill them outright.” 

Harrow’s heart pounded in her ears. She wanted to be sick again. 

“If I could undo it, I would,” she breathed. 

Something in Sextus’ posture relaxed at the admission. “It sounds to me that what your cavalier needs most now is rest,” he told her. “I can have Camilla see to her after she’s slept.” 

Relief flooded Harrow’s chest. “What will I owe you?” she asked. She hoped Sextus wouldn’t ask too high a price, but if he did, Harrow would find a way to pay it. 

Sextus frowned sharply. “You will owe me nothing at all,” he said. “I won’t ask you to weigh the cost of your cavalier’s life. That would be cruel.” 

Harrow took a deep breath, letting her hands fall to her sides. She dipped her head in a polite half-bow. 

“Thank you, Warden,” she said, and meant it sincerely. 

“Of course, Reverend Daughter,” Sextus said, tipping his head back at her. 

Unlike Gideon Nav, Harrowhark understood a dismissal when she saw one. She offered Camilla a polite nod before sweeping out of the Sixth’s quarters. When the door fell shut behind her, she leaned against it, taking a moment to compose herself. 

She needed to find whatever door their newly won key unlocked. She also needed to be sure Gideon wouldn’t do something stupid upon waking up. 

The notes had worked shockingly well before. Gideon probably found them more palatable than Harrow’s presence. 

Harrow chewed idly on her lower lip, ignoring the fact that she was stripping the paint off of it. She would leave notes, she decided, slinking back towards the Ninth’s quarters. As she passed the atrium, she had the brief thought that Gideon might be hungry when she woke. This thought lead to another: Harrow had no idea what Gideon would want to eat. She cared about food far more than Harrow did. Harrow settled on snagging a loaf of bread and hurrying back before she could be seen. She was fairly sure Gideon liked bread. 

Gideon didn’t wake when Harrow slipped back into their rooms. She didn’t wake as Harrow walked around, as quietly as she could, tucking the bread into a drawer and gathering a few pieces of flimsy to leave notes scattered around Gideon’s bed of blankets. 

The first note was fairly obvious, letting Gideon know where she was and not to follow her: 

_ I have taken the keys and gone to examine the new laboratory. DO NOT come and find me. _

The second note was a bit trickier, but ultimately Harrow decided there was no reason Gideon had to know she’d practically run to Sextus as soon as she was able to:

_ DO NOT leave the quarters. I will ask Sextus to look at you. _

The third note was simpler:

_ DO NOT go anywhere. I have left some bread for you in a drawer. _

Harrow paused for a moment, chewing her lip again. Logically, Gideon would know what that note meant. But Gideon was agonizingly stubborn. She would exploit any possible loophole Harrow left her. It would be better to make things painfully clear. 

_ “Go anywhere” in this case is defined as leaving the quarters to go to any other location in Canaan House, which you are banned from doing. _

Harrow hoped that would be clear enough. She hoped that Gideon would listen. 

She arranged and rearranged the notes more times than she would ever admit, making sure they’d be in Gideon’s sight the moment she woke up. When that was done, she sat back and looked Gideon over. 

She was breathing as steadily as she had been when Harrow left. The blood on her face had dried in an ugly smear. It would be uncomfortable when Gideon was awake to feel it, like a massive scab. 

Harrow stood silently, quickly finding a cloth, wetting it, and coming back to kneel at Gideon’s bedside. For a long time she lingered over Gideon, cloth dripping onto the floor, hardly daring to breathe. 

She was too close to Gideon. She wasn’t meant to be this close to her. Not when she was sleeping. Not when she was vulnerable. Not when she was recovering from what _ Harrowhark _ had done to her. 

Harrow was very good at hurting people. She was very good at hurting Gideon Nav. She did not know how to be gentle. 

She did the best she could, bringing the cloth to Gideon’s face. She swept away the worst of the blood, praying fervently with every touch she wouldn’t wake Gideon. She held her breath the whole time. 

Gideon didn’t stir once. That was as worrying as it was relieving. 

Harrow sat back, the now bloody cloth twisted in her hands. There was still a fair amount of paint and blood on Gideon’s face, but she wouldn’t dare to remove more. If she did, Gideon would know that Harrow had done it. 

Harrow wasn’t sure why that thought frightened her so much. 

She refused to examine that feeling. Instead, she timed her breaths to Gideon’s and took the sight of her would-be cavalier in. She looked peaceful, her face lax, her lips slightly parted, her hair a splash of russet red in a sea of black blankets. 

Harrow hadn’t touched Gideon’s hair since she was thirteen years old, and a particularly nasty fight left them both scratching at each other's faces and clawing at each other’s hair. Harrow had a scar behind her right ear where Gideon’s nails had split the fragile skin. Gideon had a similar mark on the underside of her chin. A morbidly matched set.

Before she knew what she was doing, Harrow was reaching a careful hand out to Gideon’s hair. 

Septimus had wound her fingers into it so carelessly earlier. But then again, Septimus’ touch was more welcome than Harrow’s would ever be. 

Harrowhark wasn’t allowed to want things for herself alone. 

She still reached out to brush a few strands of brilliant hair away from Gideon Nav’s forehead. She still ran a hand through her startlingly soft hair so gently it could have been the touch of a ghost. 

Gideon didn’t even twitch. 

Harrow stood, tucking her hand to her chest as if Gideon’s hair really was fire, and touching it had burned her fingertips. She could feel her heart pounding behind her ribs. She didn’t know why it was beating so quickly. 

She had lingered too long. She pulled her gloves from her pockets and slipped them on, ignoring the way her hands shook, and slid silently out of the room. Sextus would see to Gideon when she woke. She would be alright. She wouldn’t want Harrow lingering over her. That was for the best. After all, Harrow had a laboratory to explore. 

It was generally assumed that Harrowhark Nonagesimus’ favorite color was black. Harrow didn’t mind this assumption. But if anyone ever asked she would tell them, honestly, that her favorite color was red. It would be assumed, then, that Harrow was talking about the blood she so often spilled for her necromancy. Harrow wouldn’t correct this. No one had to know her favorite color was the wild red of Gideon Nav’s hair.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading this! Feel free to hit me up on tumblr at sweetscentences to scream about this book.


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